The Pennsylvania Support Guidelines were promulgated to ensure that “persons similarly situated shall be treated similarly” with regard to child support, spousal support and alimony pendente lite. While the support guidelines, therefore, look at individuals and families with a broad view to determine if they are “similar,” as no two families are alike, there are several financial and familial scenarios that reveal certain perhaps unintended outcomes in applying the support rules, including where one parent has all or nearly all of the children’s custody time, when there is no mortgage on the marital residence and when the recipient of alimony is forced to use his or her alimony to pay for the children’s expenses. These circumstances create unique issues for litigants and the courts, which could be addressed with minor adjustments to the guidelines so that more families can be treated “similarly.”

One Parent With 100 Percent of the Parenting Time

The guidelines provide the presumptive amount of child support that a parent should pay based on the parties’ combined monthly net income, generally requiring the parent with less custody time to pay support to the parent with greater custody time, see Rule 1910.16-3 (and 1910.16-3.1 for high-income cases). The comments in Rule 1910.16-4 specifically acknowledge that “the basic support schedule incorporates an assumption that the children spend 30 percent of the time with the obligor and that the obligor makes direct expenditures on their behalf during that time.” Rule 1910.16-4(c) explicitly provides for a 10 percent reduction in the amount of support owed by the obligor when he or she has at least 40 percent of the parenting time and a 20 percent reduction when the obligor has 50 percent of the parenting time. The guidelines provide a concrete, default adjustment in the support calculation when the obligor spends more time with the children, but what about situations where the obligor has minimal or no contact with the children?